Originally Posted by Danny Stewart
Wikipedia: "The 1996 TV movie showed the Doctor's regeneration delayed for more than three hours (he is declared dead on the operating table at 10:03 PM [...] with the Eighth Doctor explicitly stating that he was "dead" prior to regeneration..."
Eat it.
I mean seriously, what the hell? You can only regenerate if you're dead. Otherwise there's nothing to trigger the regeneration!
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The Seventh was the only Doctor we see to regenerate when actually, physically dead. I believe that even then the reason given for the delayed regeneration was a side effect of the anaesthetic. We don't see the Sixth die, and the regeneration could be triggered from all number of factors. What we do see is each Doctor saying something like "I'm going to regenerate blah blah" and then they do. They're always alive when it starts, not dead. This is also backed up by the Master in both Utopia and LotTL, when he has to physically trigger the process both times. Ditto the Ninth Doctor in The Parting of the Ways, when he says he is "doing it right now". Hell even the Third Doctor thinks he's going to die without help in starting the regeneration process, again implying it isn't automatic immediately upon death. What we have been shown is regeneration can only be used to "cheat death" by repairing all injuries to the Time Lords body by completely rewriting their physiology.
And even if he
did regenerate, he still regenerated by drowning in a totally flooded room.. This nullifies both arguments. If the process was automatic upon death as you imply, there's no reason to say that it would wait until a safe location is reached for the process to begin. In fact it seems far more likely that an automatic process would simply result in him drowning and regenerating over and over until all his lives were used up. There's been no magic safety feature seen that says that Time Lords only regenerate when it is "safe" to do so. In fact, we see the opposite: the Seventh regenerates in a sealed, refridgerated room; the Sixth regenerates when hostile creatures enter the TARDIS, the Fourth regenerates immediately rather than waiting for his body to be brought to the safety of the TARDIS, etc etc.
If the process was triggered when the Time Lord is still alive (as TV apparently shows us), then there would be no reason for him to, as as I stated above he'd simply drown all over again.
Besides, who says he even wanted to regenerate and survive at that point? He seemed pretty dark and depressed, and only left when Donna reminded him to leave.
By the way, the source you referenced also states, on two seperate occasions, that the Doctor is half human. Nice when we can pick and choose continuity, isn't it
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